


Unconditional

by vatrixsta



Category: Once Upon a Time (TV)
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Emotions, F/M, Fix-It, Help, Killian feels all his feelings, MY EMOTIONS, POV Emma, second proposal
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-21
Updated: 2017-03-21
Packaged: 2018-10-08 18:47:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10393749
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vatrixsta/pseuds/vatrixsta
Summary: Emma has spent her whole life believing no one would ever love her for good. As she senses something off about Killian since his proposal, she wonders if perhaps she's about to lose the only future she's ever really wanted.





	

“You don’t want to marry me, do you?” 

It was the only conclusion Emma could reasonably come to. She’d been observing him for days now. 

He was affectionate with her, almost like he couldn’t hold her tight enough, but when she attempted to return his easy affection, he almost became stiff and jittery in her hold. 

He was drinking. A lot. Even for him. 

His libido seemed to be shot, which she might have chalked up to the excessive drinking except… it hadn’t exactly been an issue before. Rum made him frisky. He still wanted to take care of her -- he’d pressed slow, wet kisses between her legs and breathed hot and dirty against her ear as he fingered her to completion twice now, but it was the same strange stiffening and hollow assurances that he was fine when she moved to reciprocate. 

He always had his peculiar tendencies, like pretending to be disgusted by the delicious things she and Henry liked to eat (she couldn’t imagine he was actually disgusted; hot popcorn and melted chocolately caramel was basically heaven sent). 

But he’d been acting especially strange since the day she took Henry canoeing. Her superpower almost never went off around him but since that day, the needle had been vibrating like crazy, because while he wasn’t lying to her, he wasn’t being entirely truthful, either. 

Which was fine. She let him have his own headspace (privately she called it brooding) and mostly ignored the occasional tingle down her spine as long as it seemed like he was thinking about the past, some deep dark secret he wasn’t ready to share with her yet. Emma didn’t need him to unburden the contents of his soul to her before he was ready. She trusted him to tell her anything she needed to know. 

Unless, of course, it was something that would hurt her. If there was one thing Emma knew about her future husband (and that had been a giddy thought, hadn’t it? Engaged to her actual, Gods certified True Freaking Love!) it was that he’d cheerfully lay down his life (again) before seeing her hurt. 

That meant whatever he was thinking (brooding) about… it would hurt her. 

The only way he could hurt her was to say he didn’t love her anymore. If he didn’t want to get married…. God it hurt just thinking about it, the idea that he didn’t want to marry her. She hadn’t even realized it was something she needed until he gave it to her. 

Then again, he didn’t really give it, did he? She backed him into a corner. God, was it possible he hadn’t even bought the ring for her? Maybe it was just pirate treasure. It had been in his sea chest. 

Meanwhile, Killian was looking at her blankly from his position on their couch, the brooding look that had taken up residence on his face replaced, however briefly, by confusion. He set the book he’d been pretending to read aside. 

“What?” he finally asked. 

Emma took a deep breath. “It’s okay. I… I made you do it, didn’t I? I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to. I really thought you were just nervous about asking because I’ve always been such a freak about commitment and I was just trying to tell you it didn’t scare me anymore. Our future.” She shook her head. “But maybe you were scared. You’ve been alive a long time and you’ve never been married and maybe that was a step you weren’t ready for. Or maybe you weren’t even thinking about it.” She was proud that her hand only shook slightly as she pried the ring she thought she’d never remove off her finger and held it out to him. “You can give it back to me when you’re ready. Or never. I don’t… I don’t need to marry you to be happy.” 

She didn’t want it to be a lie. She wanted to mean it. But she was afraid the tears in her eyes betrayed her. The look on his face hadn’t improved. The brooding was back, but he seemed to be angry now, too. 

“You don’t, do you?” he rasped out, rising off the couch to stand before her. 

Emma was still holding out the ring, hand trembling like it hadn’t since she’d faced off against Gideon. “You’re not happy,” she said firmly. “I don’t want it if it doesn’t make you happy, too.” 

That, at least, was not a lie. It just hurt so, so much, knowing that the person she had let herself love completely was like everyone else: maybe Killian didn’t really want her, either. The thought of driving him away, of him leaving, the way everyone else had, made her physically ill. 

Killian moved closer, until their knees touched. His hand wrapped around hers until he had enclosed her fist around the ring. He pressed a kiss to her forehead, the bridge of her nose and the path of a traitorous tear that escaped her iron control and trailed down her cheek. 

“Nothing in this world or any other would make me happier than being your husband,” he whispered in a low, fervent voice. “I’m so truly sorry that I made you doubt that.” 

“I don’t understand,” she whispered helplessly. “Please, Killian, whatever it is, if it’s not that--” 

His mouth found hers quickly, a deep, passionate kiss as his arms wound around her almost too tight, except Emma could never be held too tight, a byproduct of her horrific childhood and fairly terrible young adulthood. If she could burrow her way inside him she still wouldn’t be close enough when the cold crept, when the old doubts whispered that she wasn’t good enough, that no one would ever keep her. Those whispers were mostly silent now, the constant presence of her son, her parents, her true love--they had banished them for the most part. 

Killian was banishing them now. His kiss bordered on desperate, but there was no mistaking the vow he was making with it. Whatever his troubles, it was not a lack of love or desire for their future. She felt him let out a soft sob against her mouth and then he pulled back, staring at her hard enough to drill a hole in her head. 

“What is it?” she whispered.

His head shook slightly, almost imperceptibly. “I just want to remember the way you’re looking at me right now,” he said in a voice clogged with unshed tears. 

“You’re scaring me,” she told him seriously. 

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t know how to tell you this. I’m not sure what’s more cowardly, telling you so I won’t feel guilty for keeping it from you or not telling you because I can’t bear the thought of losing you.” 

“You couldn’t lose me,” she insisted, reaching out to grip the lapel of his jacket with the hand not currently holding onto her ring so hard she was afraid she might draw blood. 

“Please don’t make promises you may not be able to keep, luv,” he begged. Then he took a deep breath and began with his intent to ask her father for his blessing. 

He spared no detail. It was almost as if he wanted to make sure he’d bled himself sufficiently at her feet in penance. It was a terrible story. A horrifying one, tragic and pointless and so, so sad. 

“I didn’t know,” he muttered, wiping angrily at his eyes with the pads of his fingers as if he’d betrayed himself by shedding tears during his tale. “I swear to you, Emma, I had no idea David’s father was the man I…” He bowed his head again, the shame and self-loathing radiating off him in waves. 

And he should be ashamed. He’d done a shameful thing. Taken an innocent man’s life without thought, simply because his life could one day prove inconvenient. She’d watched him commit selfish acts before, he’d told her so many of the terrible things he’d done, but they’d never had a face before. It was different when they had face, when that face was David’s father… her grandfather. Yes, it was different when the victim was personal. It hurt more. It made her angry for all the time he’d spent wasting his life on revenge. 

She stepped forward slowly and reached for his hand. It took her a moment to unclench her fist, the ring sparkling in her palm. That ring symbolized his commitment to spend his life at her side, to never leave. 

Emma placed it in his palm. 

She’d never seen him look more devastated. Not even when she’d run that sword through him. His death, it seemed, was of little consequence to him. 

“What do you expect me to say?” she asked quietly. 

“I don’t know,” he muttered.

“I think you do,” she said. “I think you’ve spent the last few days imagining it a million different ways. Dreading it. Preparing yourself for it. You were never going to keep this a secret.”

“The night you found the ring…” He shook his head, closing his hand into a fist. “I was going to tell you. But I didn’t want to break your heart. You looked so happy.”

“I was happy,” she agreed. “I don’t know if I’ve ever been happier in my life. I thought the man I loved wanted to spend the rest of his life with me. I thought he was as sure of me as I was of him.” 

“I was,” he cried. “I still am!” 

He was. She could feel how much he meant it in every labored breath, in the pain that lived behind his blue, blue eyes. 

“Then I need you to hear what I’m saying and for once I need you to believe me,” she said in a steady voice. 

Killian seemed to draw himself up then, bracing for the ultimate blow. She saw the expectation in his eyes. 

“I will never, never abandon you," she said, because it was the thing she most wanted to hear and they were quite similar that way. He didn't seem relieved, almost like he was simply waiting for another blow to come. "We’re quite the pair, aren’t we?” she chuckled, though it was a sad, rough sound. “You’re a little sad so I assume you never wanted to marry me and you remembered something you did forty years ago--before I was born, by the way--and thought it would make me hate you.” 

His jaw clenched. “Does that mean you don’t?” he asked tightly. 

“Killian,” she sobbed, “I don’t even know how to hate you. I tried to hate you when we first met. I couldn’t even do it then, how could you possibly think I’d manage it now, after everything we’ve been through? The vow is for better or for worse. Do you really believe I’d only want you at your best? Would you only want me at mine? If I had something terrible to confess to you, something I hadn't realized until now, would you hate me for it? Would you leave me?” It was a dark part of her heart, a still damaged part, that needed to know the answer. 

His shoulders slumped and he instinctively moved forward, wanting to offer her comfort even though he was the one who probably needed comforting most. She understood the impulse. She always put him first, his feelings, his needs--they were so much more important than her own and the only reason that worked was because he felt exactly the same about her. 

She took a page out of his playbook and kissed his surprised lips, her fingers tunneling into his hair to hold him still against her. Her left hand drifted down, fingertips trailing over the taut muscles of his neck and clavicle, over his shoulder and forearm until she curled it around his fist. With gentle strokes, she loosened his hold on the ring until it once again rested in his upturned palm.

“I want you to give it back to me when you’re ready,” she whispered. “Not because you know I want it or because you’re trying to make me happy. I want you to give it to me when there’s nothing you want more.” They would learn to accept unconditional love from one another as well as give it. Emma decided that was her first vow to her future husband. 

“Swan,” he rasped, their foreheads pressed together. He repeated his earlier gesture, his lips pressed to her forehead, her cheek, her closed eyelids, the dent in her chin that he seemed to love. Then he moved lower, his mouth kissing the hollow of her throat, then over her heart above her sweater. 

She honestly didn’t realize what he was doing until he was down on one knee again, the ring held between his fingers. 

“Emma Swan,” he said in a voice that promised and promised and promised forever, “Will you marry this sorry old pirate?” 

“Every part of you,” she said, holding out her hand. The ring had been off her finger for minutes and she felt like a piece of her was missing. It settled back in place and as she sank to her knees to kiss the living daylights out of him again, she felt the same elation she’d felt the first time, but something more, too. Something better.

This time, it felt real.

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah. It's never happy fluffy bunnies with these guys. But I prefer this angst to no storyline like some true lovers *cough*Snowing*cough*. Plus they're so pretty when they cry and brood. I just can't take this wait between episodes. It really makes the pain linger. It was so much easier to take when I used to binge the show... :) I hope this y'all with the wait between episodes! Writing these post ep fix its is basically therapy for me. I should be writing my novel, but... you know.


End file.
